The re­open­ing of schools yes­ter­day was marred by the ab­sence of the ma­jor­i­ty of teach­ers in class­rooms.

In some cas­es, chil­dren ex­cit­ed to re­turn to the class­room cried when they got to school on­ly to be turned away be­cause teach­ers did not show up.

Ac­cord­ing to the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion, 17 per cent of stu­dents at­tend­ed pri­ma­ry schools and 27 per cent of teach­ers turned out. At sec­ondary schools, 39 per cent of stu­dents turned out while 31 per cent of teach­ers were present.

The Trinidad and To­ba­go Uni­fied Teach­ers As­so­ci­a­tion mean­while claimed day of ‘rest and re­flec­tion’ as a win af­ter re­port­ing 85 per cent of teach­ers stayed away from class­es.

The teach­ers’ ac­tion comes as Fi­nance Min­is­ter Colm Im­bert made it clear that Gov­ern­ment can­not af­ford more than the four per cent wage of­fer on the ta­ble.

While it is true that TTUTA did sig­nal its in­ten­tion to keep teach­ers out of the class­room on the first day of school yes­ter­day, this kind of ac­tion is un­con­scionable.

In­deed, how could it be a vic­to­ry if stu­dents are used as pawns in the ne­go­ti­a­tions with the CPO? We thus com­mend teach­ers who, in fact, at­tend­ed class­es, putting their charges at the front and fore­front.

We ful­ly un­der­stand that teach­ers have an awe­some re­spon­si­bil­i­ty in ed­u­cat­ing and shap­ing the minds of the coun­try’s chil­dren and that they de­serve to be re­mu­ner­at­ed for their con­tri­bu­tion.

How­ev­er, it is dif­fi­cult to un­der­stand why their bat­tle for bet­ter wages must be at the ex­pense of chil­dren.

Some years ago, then-Prime Min­is­ter Bas­deo Pan­day de­scribed teach­ers who aban­don their class­rooms as crim­i­nals. There has, how­ev­er, been no such de­c­la­ra­tion by any­one over yes­ter­day’s ac­tion. While it is the right of the teach­ers, like all oth­er work­ers to take ac­tion, we hope that as the term pro­gress­es and the ne­go­ti­a­tions con­tin­ue, good sense will pre­vail and the fu­ture of the chil­dren takes prece­dence.

Al­ready, the Amal­ga­mat­ed Work­ers’ Union has been ac­cused of break­ing ranks with the trade union move­ment in its bat­tle to get the Chief Per­son­nel Of­fi­cer (CPO) to in­crease the four per cent wage of­fer. Yet, if pub­lic sec­tor salary ne­go­ti­a­tions go to the In­dus­tri­al Court, there is no guar­an­tee that they will get a bet­ter of­fer.

Still, the teach­ers have sound­ed the war cry. It may well be that if the CPO, who acts on be­half of Gov­ern­ment, does not in­crease the of­fer, there may be more ac­tion to come.

But we must all ac­cept that over the past two years, many young peo­ple dropped out of school be­cause they could not cope with vir­tu­al learn­ing and many chil­dren fell through the cracks. In the same pe­ri­od, many of those same young peo­ple grav­i­tat­ed to the gang lead­ers, who be­came their men­tors. As such, it seems those charged with shap­ing the na­tion’s fu­ture should do what needs to be done to en­sure noth­ing im­pacts the ed­u­ca­tion of the na­tion’s chil­dren.

The pan­dem­ic has al­ready done its worst, now we must look with hope to the fu­ture and re­claim our young peo­ple, who, as the fa­ther of the na­tion Dr Er­ic Williams told us 60 years ago, car­ry the fu­ture of the na­tion in their book bags.